Harrison's lost school aid restored in state budget

Mar. 29, 2013

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The Harrison school district won’t lose any state aid after all for narrowly missing the state’s deadline for teacher-evaluation plans.

As an incentive for school districts to complete their plans, the state set a deadline of Jan.17 for districts to have their plans approved or risk losing any increase in state aid they were promised for this year.

Harrison submitted its plan hours before the deadline but had to make several changes to satisfy state officials. Because school board President Dennis DiLorenzo’s signature did not arrive in Albany until 19 minutes after midnight, the state Education Department ruled that Harrison missed the deadline. Harrison’s plan was approved days later.

Missing the deadline was supposed to cost Harrison about $46,000 this year. But Assemblyman David Buchwald, D-White Plains, helped get the money restored in the just-passed 2013-14 state budget.

“He deeply immersed himself in the facts, recognized that Harrison has been a state leader in teacher and principal evaluation, and that our application was unfairly characterized as late, and that no penalty should have been incurred,” he said.

Wool was still bothered that the state disapproved of Harrison’s plans to evaluate its high school principal, in part, on college admission rates. He credited Buchwald with bringing attention to “a badly flawed education reform which forced many districts to lower standards in order to maintain funding.”

Daniel Weisfeld, Buchwald’s spokesman, said that the restored aid also will prevent Harrison’s base aid from being lower in subsequent years.

“It’s not just for this year but for every year,” he said.

The New York City school system also missed the deadline and is due to lose $260 million in state aid. A state Supreme Court justice temporarily stopped the state from withholding the aid, but the state filed a notice of appeal on Wednesday.